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Huntsville Museum of Art SPRING/SUMMER 2021 ARTVIEWS 2021-2022 season HSO.org Museum Board of Trustees Chairman: Carole Jones Dear Museum Members, Vice Chairman: Sarah Gessler Secretary: Joyce Griffin n March 18, 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced Treasurer: Archie Tucker Ous to close the Museum for over two months. Charlie Bonner Patsy Haws David Nast After reopening on June 2, our recovery has been Richard Crunkleton Steve Johnson Virginia Rice slow and stressful, yet inspiring. Inspiring because Dorothy Davidson Betsy Lowe John Wynn the staff saw the financial challenges enveloping the Ex-Officio Members Collections: Ina Wilson Smith Museum during this crisis and developed creative Foundation Board President: Stephanie Lowe and financially prudent ways to keep us connected Guild President: Suzy Naumann and engaged with our members and the Huntsville GALA Chair: Margaret Gleason community. Docent Chair: Nancy Beason There is a shimmering light rising on the horizon! Foundation Board President: Stephanie Lowe December and January saw an impressive increase in Museum attendance and Vice President: Jason Vandiver class enrollment. People are eager to leave their homes to participate in events Secretary: Hilary Russell and be with friends and family. Most of us have become accustomed to wearing a Heather Adair Jane Brocato Hank Isenberg Anusha Alapati Cara Greco Cathy Scholl mask and practicing social distancing. When writing this letter, 70% of the staff John Allen Melissa Hays Ina Wilson Smith have been vaccinated. Happily, we anticipate the entire staff will be immunized by Julie Andrzejewski Jill Heffernan Kathi Tew May 1, 2021. I cannot express enough my gratitude and appreciation to the City Mark Ardin Laurie Heard Brittany Toth Caroline Bentley Gary Huckaby Dana Town of Huntsville, the local banks, and Museum patrons, who have helped us through Emeritus: Betty Grisham this pivotal and critical moment in the museum’s 50-year history. Thank You All! Ex-Officio Members We are looking forward to a summer of riveting exhibitions, from WE THE Collections: Ina Wilson Smith PEOPLE: Portraits of Veterans in America by Mary Whyte to compelling portraits of Guild Representative: Suzy Naumann Museum Board: Joyce Griffin and Steve Johnson American artists in Jack Mitchell: Artists and more. What better opportunity than in this issue of ArtViews, to highlight Guild Officers President: Suzy Naumann the fabulous donations of artwork to the Permanent Collection. Acclaimed President-elect: Sue Hensley photographer Jonathan Becker and his family attended the opening of his Secretary: Karen Naff exhibition last October, which he said was stunningly displayed. Jonathan was so Corresponding Secretary: Sarah Pfeiffer Parliamentarian: Marie Newberry impressed with the galleries and the installation of his show that he donated seven Treasurer: Carole Anne Ellers prints of Gloria Vanderbilt to HMA that were part of the show. It was an honor Fundraiser Chair: Elizabethe Osborne and pleasure to host an exhibition by one of today’s finest photographers. Staff Liaison: Elena Buckley Another addition to the collection is from long-time friends Audrey and Museum Docents Docent Chair: Nancy Beason Martin Gruss, who donated Sunlight, a painting Docent Co-Chair: Judy Wilder by Gloria Vanderbilt, which was featured in the Museum Staff recent exhibition, Gloria Vanderbilt: An Artful Executive Director: Christopher J. Madkour Life. In addition, we were given Jack Mitchell’s Executive Assistant: Elena Buckley Director of Curatorial Affairs: Peter J. Baldaia Composer and Diarist Ned Rorem with Designer Curator of Exhibitions and Collections: Gloria Vanderbilt, gift of the Jack Mitchell David Reyes Archives, and two nineteenth-century portraits, Registrar: Katherine Purves donated by Emily and Jack Burwell: Portrait of Director of Education/Museum Academy: Laura E. Smith Georgia Bibb by Phillip Romer and Portrait of a Education Associate: Candace Bean Young Girl by William Frye. The Board, Staff, Director of Communications: Danny Owen and I are immensely grateful for these significant Communications Associate: Julie Farkas Director of Development: Andrea Petroff additions to the collection. Development Associate: Brianna Sieja Finally, mark your calendar for two Membership/Development Operations Associate: Huntsville Museum of Art fundraising events Camille Sommer Accountant: Wendy Worley taking place this spring and summer. The Guild Martin and Audrey Gruss Accounting Assistants: Tonya Alexander, saddles up their season with Off to the Races Mary Chavosky from April 25 through May 1, and GALA celebrates its 30th Anniversary the Director of Special Events and Facility Rentals: Jennifer Goff week of June 8 through June 12. Both events historically generate significant Facility Rental Assistants: Toni Bridges, much-needed funds for the Museum. The success of both events requires a stable Darlene Stanford of volunteers along with generous sponsorship support. Fundraisers like these are Facilities and Grounds Manager: John Knott Security: Provided by Southern Jamm Security essential for the financial health of the institution. Security Liaison: Joseph Barker Christopher J. Madkour Guest Services Supervisor: Maci Hladky Executive Director Guest Services: Emily Alcorn, Wendy Campbell, Hallie Lang, Beth O’Connor, Donna Sietsema, On the cover: Mary Whyte, Battleground, 2012, Casey, Firefighter, Bend, Oregon, Army, A5, 19th 3 3 Museum Store Coordinator: Janell Zesinger SFG, watercolor on paper, 40 /4 x 28 /4 in. 3 Impressionist Landscapes from the Sellars Collection Now through July 11, 2021 | Chan Gallery Bertha Menzler Peyton, (American, 1871-1947), Grand Canyon, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in. ith the acquisition of the Sellars Collection of Art concerned with capturing the effects of light, color, and Wby American Women in 2008, an important holding atmosphere in their landscapes, achieved in large measure by of paintings, drawings, and sculptures was added to the painting directly from nature – out-of-doors – rather than in Museum’s permanent collection. The Collection celebrates the the studio. Though not as well-known as their Impressionist achievements of American women artists active between 1850 predecessors, this generation of landscape painters flourished in and 1940, and provides a counterpoint to the Museum’s holdings areas such as Old Lyme, Connecticut; Cape Ann, Massachusetts; of regionally and nationally significant contemporary art. New Hope, Pennsylvania; and Woodstock, New York, as well as Impressionist Landscapes from the Sellars Collection focuses elsewhere in New England and across the Southwest. on the strong pull that the natural world had on women artists Impressionist Landscapes from the Sellars Collection presents during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The exhibition over 30 exquisite landscapes in all seasons, varying in scenic emphasizes the generation of artists who emerged during and in subject matter from snow-filled views to sun-drenched hillsides, the aftermath of the American Impressionist movement (1880- as well as harbor scenes, woodland glades, and desert vistas. 1920). Featured artists include Irene Von Horvath, Edna Lawrence, Many of these artists were the students and sketching Margaret Jordan Patterson, Alice Pelton, Lilla Cabot Perry, and partners of the seminal figures in the development of many more. Impressionism in America, such as William Merritt Chase, Sponsors Willard L. Metcalf, John Henry Twachtman, and Robert Henri. Drs. Kathy and Tony Chan The artists included in the exhibition were primarily 4 Maude Eggemeyer (American, 1877-1959), Forest Lake, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in. 5 Jack Mitchell: Artists May 16-August 8, 2021 | Adtran, Jurenko and Thurber Galleries “ We have all heard of someone described as a born writer, ballplayer, or musician, but I would wager that few of us have heard of someone described as a born photographer. Perhaps, this is because one simply needs too many things to make a photograph. However, even though I know that no one is ever a born writer, much less a born photographer, I am tempted to make an exception in the case of Jack Mitchell.” — John Yau, Icons & Idols: A Photographer’s Chronicle of the Arts (1960-1995) John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 1980, vintage gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 in. Lent Courtesy of the Jack Mitchell Archives 6 merican Aphotographer Jack Mitchell (1925-2013) was renowned for his captivating photographs of visual artists, musicians, writers, dancers, and stage and screen personalities, which he documented during a remarkable career that spanned over five decades. Mitchell’s emphasis on creating high contrast images that capture the choreographed moment distinguishes his work from that of other well- known photographers of his generation. He was also an expert in lighting, and he worked mostly, though not entirely, in black and white. In addition to 25 years of special assignment work for The New York Times, Mitchell’s photographs of creative and performing artists have graced the covers and pages of Harper’s Bazaar, Life, Newsweek, People, Rolling Stone, Time, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, among others. During his long career Mitchell became renowned – by his subjects, by the magazine and newspaper editors he worked for, and by critics – as someone who could make a photograph reveal character. For example, his iconic portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which Mitchell took just a few weeks before Lennon was murdered, presents a side of the couple that was seldom seen